English Touring Opera is used to scaling down the masterpieces of the canon to fit the smaller theatres they visit on their twice-a-year tours. But in their latest production of Ariadne on Naxos, they have only had to slightly reduce Strauss's chamber orchestra scoring. Conducted by Richard Farnes, the 27-piece band makes the most of Strauss's luminous instrumentation, and with a slick and effective staging by Colin Graham (revived here by Alison Brown), the result is one of the company's most confident productions of recent seasons.
In fact, the small scale of Graham's sets creates a sense of informality that is entirely appropriate for this opera: seeing the show in the Ashcroft, we feel part of the aristocratic household invited to watch the post-prandial operatic entertainment.
The comedy of the Prologue is well-judged, with mezzo-soprano Arlene Rolph's tortured Composer at the heart of the drama. Rolph creates a self-centred, vain character, who countenances no revisions to the great work he has composed. Strauss's brilliance is the way he makes Zerbinetta's players intrude upon the grand designs of the Composer and Music Master. The Composer is forced to include a harlequinade as part of the opera, and Zerbinetta's light-hearted irony pricks the self-conscious seriousness of Ariadne's story. The most moving scene of the Prologue is the duet between the composer and Eva Kallberg's Zerbinetta. Finally persuaded to accept the changes to his drama, the composer yields to Zerbinetta's charms, and Rolph's Composer is transformed from a priggish artist into a lovesick youth.
Rolph's is the most satisfying vocal performance, although the production is let down by the quality of its singing in the second half. Paul McNamara's Bacchus was, on the first night at least, decidedly less than god-like in his intonation and stage presence; Carol Smith's Ariadne is musically accurate and dramatically imposing, even if her tone is less than sumptuous. But Kallberg relishes Zerbinetta's stratospheric aria, and the energy of her performance, and her troupe of players, propels the show.
· At the King's Theatre, Southsea (02392 828282), tonight and tomorrow, and at Perth Theatre (01738 621 031) May 30 and 31.
